The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 48. How Google web stories can benefit your blog with Lauren Casolaro

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Have you ever heard of Google web stories? Did you know that they can benefit your blog whether you are a new blogger or have been a blogger for years? Today we have Lauren Casolaro from A Pinch of Parsley on the podcast sharing her knowledge of Google web stories and how they can benefit your blog. Tune in to hear all of the helpful information she has to share!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog. Join the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode48

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Today, we have Lauren from Pinch of Parsley on the podcast to talk about the thing that every blogger's going crazy for right now, and that is Google Web Stories. And I think that Google Web Stories is something that many don't understand what they are, how they can work for you. And so we decided to bring Lauren on today to kind of pull back the curtain and talk about it and talk about how we can use Google Web Stories in our blogging business. So welcome to the podcast, Lauren. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to discuss this topic. It's really helpful.

Yeah. Well, we are excited just to kind of simplify this because there may be some of you listening who have never heard of a Google web story, and there may be some of you who have, and you don't know how to implement them into your blog. And so first and foremost, Lauren, do you just want to tell everybody a little bit about yourself and then we'll kind of dive into more about the web stories? little bit about yourself and then we'll kind of dive into more about the web stories. Sure. So hi, everyone. I'm Lauren. I run the vegan food blog called Pinch of Parsley. And I've also, I guess, become a VA for Google Web Stories now. So this is something I have seriously... One, I saw success on my own blog with great traffic coming in. And then I started doing

it for other people and they've all seen success. So yeah, that's just a little bit about me. Blogger turned into, I guess, part-time VA now. So when did you start your blog? How long have you been blogging? So I started my blog last March, 2021 of March. So that was like my first post that I published. Yeah. Awesome. I love that. Okay.

So you said that you've seen it help your blog, Google Web Stories. Let's talk about what that is. Like what is a Google Web Story? Okay. So I like to think of web stories like Instagram stories. There are these full screen, tappable pages that you can tell a story with. So for me personally, since I'm a food blogger, if I just posted a recipe, I will now make a web story showcasing that recipe. And people can tap through that. And if they want,

they can swipe up and go visit the blog post to make the recipe for themselves. Why it's different from Instagram story and like idea pins and other social media platforms that we see using these, because I think TikTok uses stories now as well. These can be shared and embedded anywhere. You could also share it on your Instagram story if you wanted and say, hey, look at my story. But it's different because it doesn't disappear. On all the other social media platforms, they go away in 24 hours. Whereas these, just like our blog posts, they're evergreen content that if people are searching, they can just pop up and people can go and look at them whenever. It doesn't matter if it was a month ago,

they can still see them. So that's what's really great on them. And then like I mentioned, you can swipe up to your blog post directly. And I don't think any of the social media platforms now have a limit, like a restriction for when you can start linking to blog posts. But when Google Web Stories started on Instagram, you were still not able to add swipe up links unless you had 10,000. So that's what was great about these. If you're any type of blogger, you didn't have to wait for Instagram to hit a certain number to draw people to your blog post. So how long have you been implementing this into your blog? So I've been implementing them since maybe Q4 of last year.

So almost a full year. Almost a full year. And then there were some times that I went maybe a month or even two without posting anything new, any new blog post. And just because I was creating web stories of my existing content, I was still getting great traffic. Like one month, because my blog was still new, I think at that point I had like 5,000 sessions. But then I started doing web stories and I noticed, oh, I'm at 20,000 sessions this month now. And I looked and it was just all people clicking through from the web stories. A lot of traffic for me, even in months where I've been pretty idle. Yeah. Okay. So that kind of goes to our next

question is, should bloggers be using them? And I think you just kind of answered that. Oh yeah. I definitely think bloggers should be using them. I myself, I don't think everybody has this issue, but I don't get a ton of traffic from social media. And if I do, it's not people who stay and sign up for my newsletter or come back all the time. Maybe if I post a recipe that day on, say, Instagram, it'll do well, but then people don't come back. And I do

notice that with web stories, I'm getting more subscribers to the email. Like I'm getting just more consistent traffic. So a major benefit, of course, like we mentioned is driving traffic to your site and then reaching new audiences. I have people who are like, oh, I just found your blog. I had no idea. I'm not on social media. So I'm getting people who just use Google and find recipes, standard, the way people used to do it. So reaching new audiences. I've also found that getting good views of my web stories has boosted my post in the results pages. So say a post that used to be on the second, third page is slowly creeping up and it has that web story kind of linking to it. So it's definitely helping. And of course, if more people are looking at it, trying at it, hopefully leaving reviews, you're just naturally going to be more trusted by Google and get pushed up. Another benefit is you can monetize them,

which is great. So with ad agencies, if you're on Mediavine, someone looking through the Google web story, you're not getting any money from that. But hopefully you've made a web story that people are interested in the blog post that they will swipe up and then go to your web story. So now you're making more money because more people are on your site. And then you can include affiliate links. So say if you're a fashion blogger and you're linking to your Amazon storefront, you can add those links and people can go look at, say, a vest on Amazon and then buy it and you're making money. And you can partner with brands. It could become a partnered web story. Like you would do anything else, a sponsored Instagram post. This could be the same thing. And then it's just another,

the last benefit is just not the last. I'm sure there's many more, but another one is just that it's another piece of content that is linking to this already existing content that you have, just creating a nice full circle for Google to better understand your site. So email marketing is an essential piece of blogging. Growing your email list is just as important as SEO and keyword research in our opinion. And in order to grow your list, you need a reliable platform that will allow you to connect with your community and turn them into email subscribers. That's where ConvertKit comes in.

ConvertKit is the go-to marketing hub for creators like you that helps you grow and monetize your audience with ease. ConvertKit allows you to grow your audience and reach, put your funnels on autopilot and earn an income with your email list, all with an easy to use platform that is approachable, even for beginners. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about the different plans that ConvertKit has and how it can help you propel your business to the next level. And so even if it was a brand new blogger, I can see so many benefits to them considering this as one of their strategies to grow traffic to their blog in another way right from the beginning.

Yeah. Because you're using content that you've already created essentially to make this story and you're just giving it so much more credibility. So monetizing your blog might be possible sooner, would you say, if you utilize web stories? I do know a couple of people who they've posted, obviously consistently, maybe just their regular on their blog, I'm saying, not even web stories yet. But if you're someone who's posting at least maybe,

even if it's just one a week, but you're still showing up on your blog, creating new content, and then you're pairing that with these web stories, you can grow rapidly and get on there. I've seen people do that. So I guess one of my questions, the thing that I struggle with understanding how this works is how are people finding these web stories? Is it like just on mobile? Is it on desktop? Is it when they like are Googling for a certain, like maybe they're looking for a recipe or something? Are these web stories showing up? I don't, I don't exactly understand how that works. Okay. I didn't understand how that worked either when I had first started. And then I started

seeing them and obviously I, I tried to look into it more, but at first they were only being shown on Google Discover, which was apparently a ton of Android users. I'm not sure if that's an app they have on their phone. I have an iPhone, so I'm not too familiar with that application, but that's where they were showing originally. And now as Google keeps refining them and they're getting more popular, they're now showing up in the page results and in like the carousels. Now, if you, I'm sorry, I keep saying recipes, I know. But if you search for a recipe at the top before it starts all the list, you have a few like recipes up there that show you the image that you could choose from. So now those are showing up

there. And I'm also noticing they're showing up, especially if you're on the desktop, they're showing up on the side where sometimes ads can be placed. They'll show up there. So you can see them on your phone or desktop anywhere. And also if you go sometimes into images, they'll show up on the top now instead of an actual image if there's something related. And I did just want to jump back when you mentioned about new bloggers using this. When I started my blog, if you have blog posts that are very, because you didn't know any better at first, they're very hard competition, you're probably not going to rank for them for a very long time. These are a great way to drive traffic to those because not everybody is using, you know, not everybody on page one for say mashed potatoes is using web stories. But if you make say right now or come Thanksgiving, if you're making a Google

web stories for mashed potatoes, that's going to show up in Google Discover on people's results pages. And they're going to see that Web Story. They'll tap through that and hopefully drive traffic to you. So maybe those tougher ones to potentially rank for, this is where you could drive some traffic. And I think it's important to mention here too, because you brought it up, that you don't have to be a food blogger to use Google Web Stories. brought it up that you don't have to be a food blogger to use Google web stories. Yeah. You can use it for all different niches. So I want to make sure that we definitely say that too, that while food is a lot of what people do search for on Google, but there are other things too that you can share in this way. And like you mentioned a fashion blogger, I'm a wellness blogger. So different things that I can share, you know, I'm, I'm a wellness blogger.

So different things that I can share, you know, especially going into like Q1 for wellness is, Oh yeah. It seems like that's when people get excited about that again. And so I think just making sure that we're not narrowing down that hole basically and saying, this is actually for everyone to, to be able to do and utilize as another tool to help grow traffic to your blog. Oh yeah. There's, and I've also, I think I mentioned the fashion and then I also know of a sustainability and like, she's a, I guess you could also say wellness, but she discusses like sustainability and non-toxic things you can use in your house. So she'll create web stories that

you can tap through. And it's like my five favorite non-toxic household items. And it will be clean, like instead of Windex, a different all-purpose cleaner that you can use on your counters. And then the next one could be, I don't know, better candles and things like that. So there's definitely room for everybody. I know there's also tech people who make web stories, tips and tricks and everything. So let's go back because I'm curious because I truly don't know. So for the wellness blogger that you just mentioned, we're going to talk in a minute about how to make them, but you're saying they're each a slide essentially. So could they, if you're sharing products, for instance,

can a person who's making a story, put a link on each slide that, okay. Yeah. So if they're sharing those five products in a Google web story, a user on Google can go in and click on a slide, like, oh, I would like to try that cleaner version of Wendex and click on the link. And it's going to take them to that affiliate. Correct. What's the right way to make sure that they are disclosing to stay in line with FTC? Do you have to have an affiliate? Do you just say that next to the affiliate link? Mark it as an affiliate link or what is... I think as long as you put a disclaimer either at the end, the beginning, or even on the specific slide, because maybe you don't have an affiliate link for every one. Maybe it's just for... Maybe it's a sponsored one and you're doing it for,

I don't know, Meyers Spray. It could just be for that. You could just say like, you know, this is an affiliate link right underneath and like little parentheses, whatever. Okay. So just like kind of how we would do on Instagram, if we're sharing like an affiliate or something like that, it's very similar in nature to be able to share. Yeah. You don't have to say like hashtag at, like you don't have to do any of that, but just as long as there's something there. Letting them know that it's a commissionable link. Okay. Okay. So let's kind of dive in a little bit more to that about how to make them like how, so let's say a person decides, okay, I want to use this as another tool to potentially

drive more traffic to my site. What are the steps that they need to do in order to start implementing Google Web Stories on their blog? Okay. So if you're using WordPress, that's what I use. I think we're all using WordPress listening. We highly recommend everyone listening is using WordPress.org. Okay. That's what I figured. So we're all using WordPress.org. Even if listening is using WordPress.org. Okay. That's what I figured. So we're all using WordPress.org. Even if you're using WordPress.com, I've seen a few people do that on accident, but either way, there is a plugin you can download. It is just called Web Stories. And you want to make sure you're downloading the one that is by Google. If you go

into the plugins and click add and search for one, it will be the first one that comes up. It looks like a little, it's purple and it has white rectangles, but you'll see it's the first one. And on the bottom, it says by Google, that's the one you want to use. So after you download that, it'll take you to, you can go to the settings page and you just have to fill in a few things like your logo. And if you want to add what you do want to add a tracking code for Google Analytics, because you want to see how they're performing. You want to see how many people are swiping up and actually going somewhere on each of the web stories that you create. So you want to add in analytics, you want to do your logo and then monetization preferences. Like I said, if you're on Mediavine or even Google AdSense, you could turn those on. So you could do that. And then after you just have

that basic setup, I would suggest if this is your very first time creating a Google Web Story, look through their templates. You'll see when you're in the plugin, it'll have like dashboard, templates, settings, like a menu on the side. I would suggest looking through their templates. I think there's about like 60 to 70 templates. You don't have to use these at all. I did not. I just don't. But when I first started, I was like, let me just click on one and play around. See how I drag photos in. See how I can add text so that I'm familiar with it. And then you could either use one if you really like one and it fits your niche, definitely use them.

And you can just adjust the colors according to your branding or just your preference, whatever you want. If you don't want to use a template after playing around with that, you can just go back to the home dashboard and click create new web story. And you can start. You can start dragging in photos, dragging the images. And then you'll see as you're playing around, there's a toolbar on the side that will let you change the font, the size, the color, everything like that. I like to think of the flow similar to a Pinterest idea pin because it's a little bit more in depth than a web story. How they have like a text and change the color and do the same thing. And you can drag in the photos.

It's very straightforward once you play around. That's what I will say. But yeah, so depending on whatever it is, you can create your template or go to your preloaded one that you've chosen and start just tweaking it. I personally made one template for myself. I made two, one for like a roundup. So that's kind of like the one I was saying of like your five favorite non-toxic cleaners. That could be a roundup of different things. For me, it's, I just made one that was like fall, vegan fall recipes. And it was five different of like, or maybe it was 10. I don't

remember, but 10 different just recipes people could choose from. And then I have one that's just about an individual post more in depth. So for me, a recipe of like, okay, we're making homemade donuts. These are the ingredients. This is the process. So that will be my pages. Again, that's going to look different for everybody and your niche. But that's just what makes sense for me. And yeah, so you can, all the images you can use are from your WordPress media library

or you can use third-party media. So they have just like a little icon. You click that and you could type in like computer. If it's like how to create a blog post or how to create like your own website. Like you could put like a computer photo, like if you need that. So you could use those and then you could add titles, captions. And then like Instagram, you could add alt text. I highly recommend adding alt text, but yeah. And then you can include your page attachment. You always want

to include that so that you're actually driving traffic to either your blog post or to potentially create, to make sales on whatever you're trying to sell. So when you started, you used a template. Did you say you did use their templates? No. So when I started, I looked through the templates and kind of use them just so I could understand how it worked. Because at first I was like, what is this? I'm not making these. Like, this is such a headache. This is crazy. This is way too much.

But then I was like, let me chill out. Like, this is very doable. Because anytime there's something new or something we have to change or add to our, you know, work, it's overwhelming at first. So that's why I suggest if you've never made one, definitely just take a look at a template, play around. Even if you don't like it, it's okay. You don't have to like it, but play around, put your photos in, change the text, change your colors, just so you get a feel. You don't have to post this at all, but just so you

have an understanding of how to work within the plugin. So if you're somebody who likes, you know, the visuals and all that stuff, and you're thinking, oh, I'm going to go create like these cool Canva templates and all this stuff. Should you stay away from that and only create what you need in the platform or in that plugin itself? Yes. So that's also what is different from Pinterest. In Pinterest, we can go in, create like a little pin and it can have all the texts and everything that we want and just upload it to Pinterest. I strongly do not recommend doing that. And it goes actually, if you were to ever look up Google's best practices for web stories, they tell you not to do that. They don't want you to upload something that already has that burned in text. Because once you download it from Canva,

that's what's considered now burned in text. So now you have just the title already burned into the image, and then you're uploading it to Google. They don't like that. They want you to create everything within the plugin. That's really good to know. Yeah. And so then you're talking about linking this to a blog post. So when you're creating a web story, you're wanting to think about creating one that relates to a blog post that you've already written. Does it have to have like the exact same information, the same content? Can you create multiple web stories for one blog post? Like how does that look?

How does that work? Yeah. So it doesn't have to have the exact same content. And I wouldn't recommend, honestly, being as detailed as you are in a blog post because you do want to drive traffic. If they're getting all that information just right from that web story, why do they have to go to your website? They don't. Yeah. Give them enough just to tease it. Yeah. You want to give just enough to tease it. Exactly

what you said. So that they're like, oh yeah, I want to, I want to look into this. I want to make this. I want to buy this. I want to learn more about this, whatever it is, but just enough detail. So they understand what's kind of going into it or what they should expect to learn. But yeah, I wouldn't be so detailed that they're like, okay, I got everything. I don't need to read any more about this. And so you can make more than one web story per blog post? Yes. So you could kind of make two different kinds like that might be, oh gosh, let me think. Let's just use an idea of a recipe because it's easier.

And so I share a lot of gluten-free recipes, for instance. Right. So I could make one like a Google web story that would say gluten-free on it. And then I could also make one that maybe didn't because if it's just using whole foods, then, you know, what's the big deal there. It doesn't necessarily have to be labeled as gluten-free, but the gluten-free is also going to, it's going to pull in people who are looking for gluten-free content. And the one that's not, isn't going to, you know, make somebody shy away. Who's not looking for gluten-free content. So you could, you can do multiple web stories. Oh yeah. So you can do multiple web stories. Do you recommend doing multiple web stories per blog post? And is there a way to track analytics to see what is doing

better? What works better for potential readers coming in? Yeah. I definitely recommend doing multiple. One, it makes your life easier. Two, you'll hit different search queries. So for me, I noticed I posted these vegan baked apple cider donuts. I posted them with that title. It wasn't doing that well. So I took off the vegan and I did baked apple cider donuts. And then I just did one called vegan apple cider donuts. So I had already three just by changing the title. I literally duplicated it because you can do that within the app. You'll see there's three little dots next to your latest and all of them. If you hover over any story that you've made, there will be three little dots, like a little setting button, like we all have,

you know, on apps and things like that. And you can go in and you can click duplicate. So it'll duplicate it. It'll keep it the same. And you can just change the title. But I will say if you're doing that, make sure the URL is different because you don't want to have two of the same URL. Google won't know where to push it. And it looks like it then it actually looks like duplicated content. But if you have different names and a little bit, like I would say change just like the metadata and the first, like maybe front page so that they're different titles, but otherwise, yeah, you can do that. And you mean the URL to like the web story itself, right? So the web story is going to have its own URL separate from your blog post URL.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Cause my brain was like, I do not know what she means. So when, so when you're in a web story and you're making it, there's different tabs. So obviously editing, so you could change the color and bring in different pictures and things like that. And then there's a tab called document. And that's where you can like type kind of like a metadata, like a description of what the web story is. And also where you can see what URL was generated for it. So it'll just be the title that you made. So if I made it vegan apple cider donuts, my URL will be backslash vegan apple cider donuts. Now, even if that's my blog post name, that is okay because there's a page created for you that's called your URL. And then it says backslash web dash stories. So even if I make a blog post, I mean a web story that has the same

title as my blog post, it's okay because there's still two different URLs because of that added web stories in between. Got it. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. So yeah, definitely it makes your life easier again, and you'll hit more trending queries. Like I said, even I noticed, say on Google trends, I like to look at Google trends. We'll talk about that more when we talk about strategy, but I like to look at Google trends and I'll notice that one will say like fall dessert recipes, but then another will say like fall baking, like things like that. So again, I could use the same stuff. I can keep the same recipes I put in there, but just change out the titles and a little bit of the description. So two for one.

Yeah. It just reiterates that one piece of content. And when we talk about creating content, I think a lot of times we tell ourselves, especially if you're a new blogger, I have to just continue creating all this new content all the time. But we cannot ignore the fact that promotion of that content is probably more important than the original blog post because you can do it in a number of different ways by being on Pinterest, web stories, sharing on social, making sure your email list has it. There's lots of ways that you can take that one piece of content and make sure that not only are

you driving your readers who are already on your email list, but getting new people in as well. And I think this is a really good way to be able to bring new people in by offering this on your site as well. Oh yeah. There's so many ways for us to stretch content. And even if I say, like I was saying before, even if I'm making that web story for the apple cider donuts, I can also put the apple cider donuts in a roundup web story. So now I have it in two places, even if I didn't already make that duplicate one, which is the different name, different description and some different info, but it's already in two places. And that's not even besides aside from Instagram and Pinterest and maybe YouTube shorts, if you have a video and

TikTok and there's, yeah. So we've talked about testing out these different options. And I think we briefly mentioned connecting your Google Analytics. And I don't want to like go into too much technical detail here, but can you explain a little bit about, you know, how you connect those and then how you can go and look at the results from your web stories specifically? Because I think that this might be something that people could really look at as a way to, to build up that traffic. And does that traffic help you in terms of qualifying for an ad network in some way? If you're trying to meet a minimum number of sessions per month, do the views on the web stories count? Do only the people that click over count?

Can we talk about that a little bit? Right. So in terms of analytics and tracking your web stories, seeing their performance, So in terms of analytics and tracking your web stories, seeing their performance, I strongly recommend creating a separate universal Google Analytics property. And this is because it'll make it easier for you to view them and to understand them and see where people are. Are they still tapping through? Did they swipe up?

Did they leave? It will tell you how many people did that, which is great. But having it separate is great also because companies like Mediavine do not care how many people are viewing those stories. But you care. You do want to know if people are at least viewing them because then you know it's working. Maybe not everybody swiped up and okay, they could just not be interested or whatever, but you do want to know if your Google web stories are being seen just in general, but ad companies don't care

about that. So if you have them all on one thing, so say you just have your one Google analytics that you have created for your blog. And that's where you put it. This could, having the web stories on there, it could lower your RPMs if you are on an ad network. So now you're getting less money per view, per click, all of it. And it's just, again, it's just confusing. So you want to make sure they're separate. I do not have to go into how to create a separate analytics profile. Mediavine has a really great guide that I followed when I did it, and it's been perfect. So you could just Google search Web Stories analytics profile. The Mediavine one should be the first. It's always been the first for me. I looked it up

yesterday too to make sure and it was still first. So hopefully it's like that, but just look for the Mediavine one. And then when you're creating that profile, just make sure you're using, I mentioned before how when you download the plugin, it'll create that default page with the backslash web stories added to the end of your URL. Make sure that's the URL you're using. So it's tracking it properly. So it'll generate, once you create that profile, it'll generate that code. I think that we've all probably embedded before into the backend of our site. You can just copy that code.

You don't need to put it anywhere else. Just copy that code, go to the settings in your plugin and paste it. It's the first option you have, the Google Analytics code, paste it. I do just want to say, if you have Google Site Kit installed, you will run into an issue because they don't allow you to have two different properties to track. So you either have to remove it, which I recommend anyway, you don't need to have it. It's just it weighs down your site and you can just track everything on your desktop or even on your phone on the app. You can just look at Google Analytics directly. So yeah, if you have it, it's just not going to let you manually put that code in, but it's also not going to let you track a second property just as a warning.

So when you're qualifying, because it will show you how many people are viewing them, and that's going to be an amazing amount. But agencies don't care about that. They care about the amount of people that have swiped up and that it's actually brought to your page. So think of it like web story click-throughs. You want to make sure people are actually clicking through and going onto your blog post. And once you have that plugged into your analytics, you can just go to your analytics, select the web stories one that you have, and you can go over to events and it will show you all your web stories. It'll show you how many people, and if you click a specific one, it'll show you how many people, if you click a specific one, it will show you how many people swiped up. So yesterday I was looking at one and it was like, I think it was maybe it was new. So I think it was like 2000 views, but of that, like 60 people

actually swiped up, but that's 60 more views than I had. So, okay. I want to make sure that we really break this down. So the point of two Google Analytics, the point of that is you have the separate one to where you can see how many people are actually seeing the web story. The reason that we don't want that connected is because when you're qualifying for an ad network, you want to see how many click-throughs are actually happening. So by having your basic Google Analytics installed, it's keeping track of the traffic that's actually coming to your site. I want the listeners to make sure that... Because it's taking me a minute to compartmentalize all this. When you're trying to qualify for an ad

network, the goal is to get people on your site. It's not just to get them to see your stuff on Google. So you have to have the... Obviously know, obviously showing up on page one and think just showing up there doesn't mean anything. They actually need to click through on it. Same thing with web stories. So it's good to know the analytic to see, okay, how many people are actually seeing this, but then it's also good to know how many people are actually visiting the site for it.

That's the reason for the two different analytics. And yeah, I just want to make sure we kind of talked through that because I'm just being honest. I am not using Google Web Stories right now, clearly. And so this is brand new. And so I'm listening right along with our listeners who haven't done this yet. And so I just want to make sure that if'm glad it's like their mind is a little blown and I'm like, why am I not doing this? You know, I'm definitely thinking that right now that, that we make it as simple for them and to do that. And I think you, you said something so important that when we're learning new things like this, sometimes it does feel kind of overwhelming and we're like, no, I don't want to learn it. I don't want to do it. But like you just said yesterday, you created one that had 2000

views, but 60 click-throughs. I mean, that's more than some new bloggers get in an entire day. So think about that. Think about like 60 click-throughs is a lot for a lot of people, a handful of people who are just beginning. So I hope that you're listening to this and taking some of this in and knowing that I think anything, it feels a little complicated as we're learning about it together, but knowing it could potentially

really drive a lot of traffic to your site because it's something that we all can be using. Yeah, it's really, it's an amazing tool that I think we should all use. Oh, I did want to say one more thing about the analytics part. When people do swipe up that number, so say if it's five of us, that number of people on your page, it will transfer back to your original Google Analytics, your first property. So it's still going to count because now they're on your regular site and they're on the blog post. So that will be shown on your first property that you have.

So it's not like you're losing that and they're all just going to be over there. They'll show up. It'll show up. Yes. Because if you're wondering about that, in order to qualify for an ad network, you have to have your Google Analytics connected to your site. If you don't have Google Analytics connected to your site. If you don't have Google Analytics connected to your site and you're wanting that, I would highly recommend connecting Google Analytics because they use those analytics in order to qualify you in order to apply to an ad network. And Mediavine has the lowest threshold. That's why we're saying Mediavine. There's other ones that are higher, but all three of us are on Mediavine. And so it's the one that you can qualify for first.

There are other ones that you can use, but Jennifer and I just recommend waiting until you can get on Mediavine. There's other things that you can do to generate revenue on your blog. And we've talked about that in other podcast episodes. And so thinking about that, that's why we're talking about Mediavine so much is because that's going to be the first one that we recommend that you qualify for and decide to get on. So let's talk a little bit about the content that we already have on our blogs. Even if you are a new blogger, how do you know what content you've created deserves a web story at that time? How do

you know when a post should be made into a web story? Okay. Well, if you're a brand new blogger, I recommend just, you're not going, I don't know how many blog posts you might have. Maybe you just cranked out 20. That's crazy, but amazing. But if you, if you're only, if you're brand new and say you only have 10 up, go and make web stories for all 10 that you have. Go for it. But if you do have a lot more posts on your page and you have more content to choose from, I recommend starting with seasonal content. That's what people are searching for. So start with seasonal content. Start with your top 10 blog posts or maybe the ones that bring you, you know,

they have a lot of page views. And if you're on an ad network, maybe they're bringing in the most money. Start with those as well. And then lastly, look at Google Trends. So you can just search Google Trends. It'll take you to a website and I will just type in recipes and I will look at the past day, the past hour, the past week and see what people have been searching for. And if I have something that fits, I will create a web story for it. And doing seasonal content and looking at Google trends, those ones are going to do the best because that's what people are actually looking for. Maybe you have a popsicle recipe that you made, but no one's looking for that right now. The great thing about web stories is they will drive traffic right now. People are seeing it

right now, right when you post it. So if it's something that people are looking for, like I said, if you see it's trending in Google, people are looking for that right now. So they want to see your post right now. So that's a great way to do that. That's how you'll see the best results from them. So let's say that you were late in the game and that you're just now starting Thanksgiving content or something. So it's November and we're just now creating Thanksgiving content. Pinterest needs 45 to 60 days or so to really get some juice to go here. This is a way that if you're a little late to the game and creating some of those posts that you can get it out and still make that,

you know, valuable content for people this year and then come next year, that post is already out. It might do better on Pinterest next year. And then you have this google web story so here's my question so next year can you create a new google web story for yeah like could you yep so you would just need to change the url again yep okay use the same one if you want it but yeah you could use the same one because i will say although they're evergreen they're always there I have found that they do eventually kind of die out because if you think about it, they're not really at the top of the list. If someone's searching for, you know, how to cook a turkey and you have a whole guide on that and you create a web story on that amazing web story, but you created it last year. It's not going to be at the top of people's searches. So you should make a new one in the coming year. But unlike Pinterest, you don't have to wait.

And even page results. Yeah, you're not going to rank on the first page the same day that you're posting that blog post. Maybe you'll rank on the first page in a few months or next year or whatever it is, but you can still post that recipe and get it out there and people are going to see it if they're searching for that right away. Do you want to start a blog, but you aren't sure what to do first? Are you still wondering what you're going to write about and who your ideal reader is? Have you researched blog platforms only to be left with even more questions and have a no idea what platform to build your blog on. Guess what? We created the blog Depot just for you. The blog Depot is a nine module course that was designed for someone who thinks that they want to start a blog, but wants to

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I know at this point, like I'm super excited, like feeling motivated about, you know, diving into some more of these. It makes a little more sense to me than it did. I have played around with it some and didn't have much success, but I'm like understanding maybe why a little bit. And so if I'm wanting to sit down and say, okay, I'm going to commit to making some web stories. We talked about how to prioritize which ones to make. What are some strategies that you can use to kind of simplify the whole process so that you're not spending, like feeling like this is a whole huge task. I mean, it doesn't sound like you're spending just significant amounts of time every week to create these web stories. Is it something that's possible to just add on and do in a short amount of time? And if so, like what are some of your tips for making it a simplified streamlined process? Okay. Yeah. So before we mentioned

creating, if you're brand new to them, I mentioned create templates. Pick one that you like from theirs or create your own, whatever it is. I personally, for myself, have just two templates. That's all I use. So like I said, I have a roundup template. So how I mentioned there was fall dessert recipes. I just have a roundup one where it's like, okay, this page is going to be apple cider donuts. This page is going to be pumpkin coffee cake. This page is going to be chili. Well, that's not dessert, but you get what I'm saying. So I have that. And then I have one for just that will cover the whole blog post little like for me again, I'm sorry, recipes, but again, breaking down like how you make it, what it is, how you make it. So just like a general one with like instructions or so whatever that looks like for you. That's what I

would recommend. Maybe you need more. Probably not because people searching, they're not searching anything crazy. They are really searching things, fall dessert recipes. They're not even searching for a pumpkin coffee cake. Like, you know what I mean? To show those. Yeah, don't overthink it. What I'm hearing you say is don't overthink it. Yeah, don't overthink. So first, make templates.

Because the great thing about the templates is, like I mentioned earlier, you can duplicate them. So it's not like every time you want to make a web story, you don't have to start from scratch. Every time. You can just duplicate it, swap in the photos that pertain to whichever one you're writing about and change out the text. And it makes it so much faster. So I will say when you're making the templates, maybe you take a half hour, an hour to make the templates, but that's saving you so much time down the line. So that's my first tip, make templates. Okay. The second one is just being consistent. So I have clients who post three times a week or they post six times a week. Regardless, over time, they've all seen a steady

increase of the traffic they've gained just from posting web stories. Just have a consistent schedule. So you having these templates, you can sit down on whenever you want, Sunday, Monday, whenever you have time and schedule out those. So if you want to do three a week, be like, okay, this week I'm going to post about these three ones, or I'm going to do a roundup. And then about these two individual blog posts I have, if you know that you can sit down and now, well, I have clients now, so it does take me half the day to do mine and all of my clients and whatever. But when it's just mine, it now takes me 15 minutes to a half hour to do all three and schedule those.

And you don't have to check on them after. A great thing about that is within the plugin, again, you can pick when they publish. So I could say, I want to publish on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. And they will go. And they will do their thing and generate traffic. So you can batch it and make sure that you just block off an hour probably to start. Yes. An hour to get it. Yeah. And then just batch that work to where you're not doing it to make the creation of your blog post even longer, like making that like a four hour process

or something like that. Right. And if you're posting a brand new blog post, I recommend just adding it to your workflow. So you hit publish or you hit schedule, whichever one. Once you're done, you can now just go right to the plugin and also make a web story for it and hit publish or schedule. So it's coming out together. And I find that it's like, okay, that one's done and off my list. I don't have to even go back to it unless I see that it's trending. And I'm like, oh, I could tweak it and maybe post it again, whichever. But if you don't have a new blog post coming out, then you can do, of course, the sitting down and batching them. If you do work that into your flow. I know for me,

I'm always like, okay, I just posted one. I have to do my web stories. Let me post some Pinterest. Let me get it up on Instagram. Like I just know that that's my flow. And if it's just one, it'll take you 10 minutes, not even. So especially if you have those templates. So what are some SEO tips that we haven't already mentioned yet that can just kind of boost the web stories and help them work for you? Right. So like with anything, you want to make sure you are optimizing not only your blog posts, but also your web stories by following SEO best practices.

So we mentioned avoiding burned in text, just as a reminder. So do not create them on Canva, just create them using the plugin. I discussed adding like the metadata in the document tab. That's just a little description. Again, same thing that we do with our blog post, write a unique metadata one. There's three more that I would like to mention, and I don't think we've mentioned them yet. The first one is submit your sitemap to Google search console. This lets Google know that this new page exists, this new category on your website exists. Hopefully you have all of your other sitemaps submitted to Google search console. I do know a lot of bloggers who had no idea what this was. So if you need your sitemap, I think everybody should have or does have the Yoast plugin.

That's where you can find your sitemaps and they will just pop up and it'll give you however many you have. I personally have four. I know some people have eight, but it will just give you URLs. So you want to go into your Google search console. On the menu side, there's a button you can click for sitemaps and just copy and paste those into there. This lets Google, again, know that they exist and they will start crawling your site for them and pushing them. So you want to make sure that your sitemap is in Google search console for everything but also for your new web stories if this is brand new or if you've never done it go get that in the next thing

is following accessibility practices so as i mentioned before you want to make sure you're adding all text to your images if you're putting them in there you should be it's kind of boring to just look at text so make sure you are using images. If you have videos, those are great too. But yeah, make sure you're just putting all text in. So you could just click on the image. You'll see it on the sidebar, like I mentioned. Make sure that your font is large enough. I think it should be at least 18. And make sure that if you're using colors, if you're using your branding colors, make sure it's contrasting enough. So you don't want to use like a yellow and a light orange.

That's going to be hard to read for anybody. So if you have a darker branding color, maybe use that as like the background underneath the photo and then a lighter one to say the title, something like that. And then when you are making them a little border will show up, make sure you're keeping the text within that border. It's okay if your image goes over that, but make sure you're keeping the text within there. Just this makes it compatible with different devices. We're not all using iPhones, but people can view these on any smartphone. But again, there's so many now, so they could show up differently. So just make sure that you're staying within that little border. That's yeah. And then you'll also see when you're making them, there is a checklist. So everything I kind of just said, if you're

having serious issues before you post it, the plugin will be like, hey, look at this because you're something's not right with this. This isn't really following the guidelines. It's okay if you have like, I know I've gotten, it won't warn you for this, but sometimes it'll give me like a little one and it'll say like, add more text to this page, but it's my title page. And it's like, I don't need more text. This is just the title. So with some of it, you can ignore it, but some of them, usually they'll warn you if there's a lot of accessibility issues. So just keep those in mind. And the last thing is to, after you post, say this is your first web story ever. After you post it, you want to make sure it's valid and being recognized by Google.

And again, meeting all those guidelines. So you can run an AMP test. So you can just search Google AMP test. And then you can copy your Web Store URL, paste it in there and you should just get a green check mark and it'll say this is valid. So that's it.

Yeah, those are all the SEO tips and then we had mentioned the other ones. You have given so much knowledge and advice here. We should have said at the beginning of this episode for somebody to grab a note with that because you're going to need it for this one. So, and I think this is definitely an episode that you can go back and listen to multiple times. And I think you're going to learn new things. I know I'm going to go back and listen to it myself. So thank you so much for kind of just pulling back that curtain and talking about this,

because it's not something that we want to feel overwhelmed by if it's a way that we can drive more traffic to our websites and make sure that people are seeing the hard work that we're putting out there. So it's just another way for us to do that. So thank you so much for going through it simply with us and doing so well at explaining it. I mean, I'm really thankful and I know our listeners are going to be as well. And I want to give you the opportunity because you do do this for people as well now. And so I want to give you the opportunity to share a little bit about what that would look like if somebody is like, I just do not have the capacity to do that or add Google Web Stories. So do you want to share a little bit about that part of your business?

Oh, yeah, of course. And thank you so much. If anything was confusing at all, please feel free to reach out to me. In general, I'm happy to discuss anything further or clarify anything. If it was confusing in any way, I know there was just so much. And again, it can be overwhelming. So if there was something that you're like, I really don't get that. I didn't explain it well, because that's natural. Just let me know. And I'm happy to do that. I will send you a voice note. We could just text or whatever you need. So first and foremost, that please let me know. And yes, I do create web stories for other bloggers. Now I have eight clients that

I'm creating web stories for as well as myself, of course. And that looks different for everybody. I've had past clients where they're like, hey, can you just create 10 for my top blog posts? Just create web stories for these top 10. I just want to get those out. I've had someone just say, hey, can you please create templates for me? And I've done that for them. And then I also have long-term clients who are three months, six months. I think that's what everybody is doing right now. I've had someone just do one month and then be like, let's reevaluate there. And she saw success. So now she signed on for six months, but it's very, I guess you could say

white glove. Of course, I would love your bloggers feedback on, hey, these are my top posts are because I can't see that unless you're giving me access, which is not necessary. So the only thing I would ask of a blogger is let me know your top 10 blog posts, and then I will just do the rest. We can find what is trending. I will do that for you, of course. And then I will keep an eye on what's new that you're posting so we can create those for you. So if you don't want to add that into your workflow, like I mentioned before, I will just catch it, put it on the list. I have a big tracker of what's to be made. So yeah. And then I will just go in. I will be able to access your media on your WordPress.

And that's really all I need. I don't really need anything else. I think it's just the very basic kind of user profile and just create them for you. They would get scheduled weekly and very... I would do all the research again, monitor. So yeah. Awesome. I love that you've taken something that can benefit others and you're willing to share about it and you're willing to help other bloggers. I love your heart. It truly...

Oh, thank you. Yeah. I think it's so important to know that there are people out there who truly want other bloggers to succeed. And we... I mean, Jennifer and I definitely are in that camp. And I love having

conversations with people who feel very similar and thanks for like shining your light in that way and making room for everybody. I think that's really important that people know the internet is a really big space and there's enough for all of us to find success. Oh yeah. So thank you for just sharing. Yeah. So how can people connect with you? Where can they, what's your blog? Will you say your blog again? And then where they can connect with you on social. So my Instagram and Tik TOK, and I think Pinterest and everything else, which whatever Instagram, please contact me there. If you have any questions about anything, it's pinch of parsley with an underscore at the end.

That's the same for all the socials, I believe. And then my website is apinchofparsley.com. So that's my blog if you're interested in vegan recipes. Yeah. And oh, I did want to just share one more tip. If you are creating the web stories on your own, the best times to post are the weekend. That's when people are searching the most. And if you want to post something, say like for dinner time, post that day around like noon. That's when people are usually on their lunch breaks looking for something to make for dinner during the work week. So great tip.

One last tip. Very good to know. Thank you so much, Lauren. This was awesome. Of course. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with

us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.